Isabella May is next in this series featuring fellow Crooked Cat Books authors. I see this as a chance to give the authors a bit of promotion on my website while getting to know them better.
Isabella’s next novel is The Cocktail Bar, which is set for a Feb. 13 launch although it’s available to pre-order.
Here are Isabella’s responses to my 6Ws — who, what, when, where, how, and why. (How does end with a W.)
Who is author Isabella May?
That’s a cracker of a question! I think Isabella represents many aspects of storytelling merged into one. She loves nothing more than to fuse diverse subjects into her novels, making them every marketing mogul’s nightmare – not on purpose, of course. She just believes that variety is the spice of life and can’t help herself. From food and drink to comedy, romance and spirituality, travel and jump-off-the-wall characters – a little bit of darkness besides; Isabella always aims to tell a multi-faceted story, with food and drink playing a central role.
I guess you could call her a hammed up version of me (Isabella and May were actually my grandmothers, two feisty and independent ladies, whose names I adore and have turned into my pen name).
What does she write?
The easiest way to pigeonhole her writing would be to call it Contemporary Fiction. She loves to write about temporarily lost characters, re-discovering their inner zest that was there all along. She also loves to shine a spotlight on Somerset, a southwestern county of England that so rarely gets to play the leading part in fiction… more’s the pity! Food and drink are important to her because she wants us to fall in love with them all over again, to quiet the labeling of good and bad, to simply immerse ourselves in their flavours and fragrances and enjoy.
When does she write?
Between 9am and 1pm school days (the kids finish ridiculously early in Spain!). She has also become quite adept at scribbling in notebooks in cafes while she waits for her daughter to dance and her son to play golf. Which makes her sound mega posh… but she’s really not; dance and sports in Spain are just soooo much cheaper than the UK!
How does she write?
With coffee and cake and copious amounts of water… a little Prince playing in the background if mood dictates.
Where does she write?
Normally at the dining table gazing out the window at the azure blue Mediterranean sea (okay, she actually has to stand to see that, but it’s just beyond the hedge as she lives on the beach).
And on hot summer’s afternoons past 3pm, the balcony is covered in blissful shade, and then where better to retreat with the laptop and an Aperol Spritz to listen to the waves crash and roll, to watch the scattering of surfers zip by, and to catch the hint of jasmine on the air as she scribbles down ideas?
Why does she write?
To empty her head of the swirls of chitchat and harebrained escapades that her characters find themselves entangled in.
More: The Cocktail Bar is her second novel published with Crooked Cat Books — and here’s a sneaky peek of the blurb:
Rock star, River Jackson, is back in his hometown of Glastonbury to open a cocktail bar… and the locals aren’t impressed.
Seductive Georgina is proving too hot to handle; band mate, Angelic Alice, is messing with his heart and his head; his mum is a hippie-dippy liability; his school friends have resorted to violence – oh, and his band manager, Lennie, AND the media are on his trail.
But River is armed with a magical Mexican elixir which will change the lives of the Three Chosen Ones. Once the Mexican wave of joy takes a hold of the town, he’s glad he didn’t lose his proverbial bottle.
Pity he hasn’t taken better care of the real one…
The Cocktail Bar is available to pre-order now on Kindle and in paperback via this Universal Amazon buying link: myBook.to/thecocktailbar
Other works: Oh! What a Pavlova – Universal Amazon buying link: myBook.to/pavlova
Isabella May on social media: